“Stop what? I’m not doing anything.”
“But don’t you hear that?”
Everybody stopped talking. Nobody even breathed. The scratching began again.
“Oh, what is that?” cried Mary. “It sounds like it’s outside. Didn’t you say Willie scratched on Becky and Marty’s tent before—before he…?”
The scratching stopped. We all sat in the pitch-black and nighttime silence and began to breathe sighs of relief. Then the wailing began. Emily was doing an awfully good job.
“Oooooeeeeeee ooowaaaaa. Eeeeaghhhh. Ooooosuuuuu. Oooooosuuuuu. Suseeeeee. Suseeeee.”
“Aghh!” yelled Susie. “He’s calling my name! He’s calling my name!”
Suddenly everyone was screaming and shouting and running around.
“Help! Help me!” That was Susie again. She felt she was in more danger than the rest of us.
Someone flicked on a flashlight. To my relief, Emily was back inside.
“Help!” screamed Susie even louder than before. She sounded slightly hysterical.
“Shhh,” I hissed at her. “Everyone be quiet.”
Everyone calmed down. Silence.
“But I know he’s out there! He’s still after me. He’s just waiting until I go outside. Help! Help!”
Outside a stick cracked. I almost screamed myself. Everyone else went crazy.
“Help! Help!”
“Save us!”
“Aughh!”
Suddenly the room was flooded with light.
“Girls! What’s wrong?”
It was Nancy and Mrs. Wright with a flashlight as bright as a couple of headlights.
Susie positively flung herself on Nancy.
“He’s out there! He’s out there! Three-Fingered Willie! He’s after me. He was calling my name. I thought he was going to kill me.” Susie was sobbing for real. I actually felt slightly sorry for her.
After Nancy quieted her down, Mrs. Wright asked her what happened.
“Kammy was telling us a horror story, Mrs. Wright. It was awful. She scared us out of our wits. And then when the story was over we heard someone outside scratching on our cabin and calling my name, just like in the story.”
Nancy and Mrs. Wright glanced at each other.
“And do you really believe Three-Fingered Willie was out there, Susie?” asked Mrs. Wright.
“N-no. I guess not….I bet it was a trick! She tricked me. She tricked me again, Mrs. Wright!”
I stuck out my tongue at Susie. Mrs. Wright caught me.
“Kamilla,” she said. Her voice was sharp enough to dice celery. “I’ll tell the cook that you’ll be helping out in the kitchen after dinner for the next five evenings. Furthermore, one more incident, one more bit of trouble from you, and I will have to take serious action of some sort.”
I opened my mouth. “No questions,” snapped Mrs. Wright. “Everybody in bed now. It’s late.”
It took almost an hour for us to settle down in our bunks. When things were finally quiet, I reached under my pillow and drew out Muffin’s letter. I scrunched all the way down inside my sleeping bag and turned on the weak flashlight. What kind of letter could Muffin possibly send?
I slit the envelope and pulled out a piece of pink construction paper folded about twenty-four times. I tried to smooth it out. On it Muffin had drawn a wobbly picture of a girl. Next to it was a big 4 and a big M. So she had learned to write the M after all. I was possibly the only living being who knew that Muffin’s “letter” meant “Muffin is excited about her fourth birthday.” And she wanted me to know! It was sort of cute. But it was hard to tell if she was writing because she liked me or if this was just a thinly disguised reminder to send her a birthday present.
I pushed away the whole problem and fell asleep, alternately smiling over the story of Three-Fingered Willie and worrying over what sort of action Mrs. Wright might take.
And I decided to pretend that Susie Benson was not alive.
Chapter 11
More Ups and Downs
ON SATURDAY MORNING SOMETHING sort of interesting happened. I went to a drama workshop and liked it.
The only reason I had signed up for drama was to stay out of this nature study group that had to tramp around in the woods collecting live specimens that later would be speared onto display cases.
But drama turned out to be a lot of fun. Angela and I walked over together. She had signed up for the same reason I had.
“It’s gross,” she said. “Do you know how they kill the frogs before they dissect them? They pith them. They take this long needle—”
“Stop!” I shrieked. “I don’t want to know.”
“I wish we could spend every day in the arts and crafts room.”
“Me, too,” I said wistfully.
“But I guess we have to let other people have a turn. Like Susie.”
I looked at her sharply.
“Have you seen what she’s making?” Angela asked. “It’s so stupid. But, then, we have to remember Susie’s special problems.”
Her special problems? I had been tormenting a handicapped person? I cringed. “What problems?” I whispered.
“It’s very sad. Susie was born without an imagination or a sense of humor.”
I laughed. It was more a laugh of relief than a laugh of humor. I was beginning to feel just the teeniest bit sorry for Susie. Nobody really liked her.
The first thing we did in the drama class was “loosen up,” shake out our bodies, and scream! It was weird, but fun. After we were loosened, we all settled down in a clearing in the woods. Cassandra, our drama coach, said our first project would be to prepare a short play to present to the parents on Visiting Day. I had never been in a play, but it sounded like fun. By the time the morning was over we had written the play, and I volunteered to work on painting scenery, and got a bit part as the grandmother. Imagine me in a play! I wondered if I would get stage fright. I wondered if stage fright felt the same as homesickness.
At noon we broke for lunch and I walked to the mess hall alone, feeling rather proud of myself for knowing how to get there. A few things were coming more easily now; like I had found my way to the bathroom in the dark a couple of times, and I knew my way all around camp. Swimming and undressing and serving were still problems, but I wasn’t worrying about them just then. I bounced along in the warm sunshine, whistling and thinking about the quilt I was making.
The last thing I expected to see was a foot shooting across the path. I didn’t exactly sprawl on the ground, but I came close. I thanked my lucky stars for a little tree branch that was within grabbing distance.
The foot belonged to Susie. She was smirking again.
“Jerk,” I said hotly, without thinking. It is hard to pretend someone does not exist when that person has just made a fool of you.
“Baby,” she said as she ran off down the path, turning around long enough to stick out her tongue at me.
Angela was right. Susie did not have much of an imagination. She had called me names about eleven times so far, and all the names were “baby.” O.K., Susie, I thought to myself, this is war.
I met Emily outside the mess hall. Already a war idea was brewing, but I kept still about it.
“Special lunch today,” Emily greeted me.
“Oh, yeah?” I said suspiciously.
“Really,” said Em. “We only get this four times a summer.”
“What is it?” I asked. Emily really likes fruit salad and yogurt, so I wasn’t sure whether I could trust her.
“Do-it-yourself hoagies and do-it-yourself sundaes.”
“Wow! You’re kidding,” I cried.
The tables in the mess hall had been rearranged into two long buffet tables. Across one was spread every imaginable kind of sandwich filling and spread, from roast beef and ham to peanut butter and jelly. The other table wasn’t finished, but it looked pretty promising. I saw marshmallow topping, whipped topping, strawberries, nuts, cherries, chocolate syrup, butterscotch, and big dishes to
hold everything.
Emily and I walked beside the hoagie table, taking practically everything. Except anchovies. I felt sorry for the little anchovies. They weren’t going to have too many takers.
We carried our hoagies out to the lawn where one week ago Dad and I had sat trying to picnic next to the Fat Family. I couldn’t believe it was just last week. It seemed like forever ago. It seemed unreal. Then, hey! I thought suddenly, I’ve made it through half of Kate’s trial period. It hadn’t all been good, but I’d made it!
Emily and I found Jan and Angela and Nancy, and we sat together in a bunch. It was the first meal we’d gotten to eat with our bunkies. I sat feeling glowy and contented, like a cat napping in a pool of sunshine.
When I saw Mary and Susie walk out of the mess hall with their hoagies and start to come over to us but turn away, my mood was spoiled, but only momentarily.
About half an hour later, after our incredibly large sundaes had disappeared and we were basking in the sun, lazy and drowsy, a shadow fell across my eyes. I opened them.
Mrs. Wright towered over me.
What now? I thought, panicked. This time I really haven’t done anything. I’m even willing to admit I’m having fun.
“Kammy?” said Mrs. Wright lightly. She didn’t sound angry, but she sounded the way Dad sounded the night he had to ask me whether the disappearance of the cookie jar money had anything to do with me. Like he was walking on eggshells.
“Yes?” I answered warily.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I’d like to see you for a few minutes….Don’t worry. It’s just for a chat.” She smiled.
I looked at that smile very carefully. Sometimes you can see things hidden behind people’s smiles. Dad says some of those things are called ulterior motives. He says I’ll understand that term better when I get to be an adult.
Well, I didn’t see anything else—like fury—behind that smile, so I gave her back a wobbly little smile of my own and started to get up.
“Oh, you can wait until lunch is over,” said Mrs. Wright. “Relax for a few more minutes. Then come along to my office.”
There were about ten minutes before the gong would go off, but I couldn’t enjoy them. Darn old Mrs. Wright.
What did she want me for, anyway? Maybe Susie was telling stories about me now. I wouldn’t put it past her. To be frank, I wouldn’t blame her.
Or maybe she had found out I got out of serving dinner last night by bribing Amanda Jacobs, who sat next to me.
I headed over to the office with sweaty palms and cold feet.
“Come in,” Mrs. Wright called, as I knocked on the door.
I plopped myself down in the hard-backed chair opposite her desk. It felt like it was designed to support people without spines. Or to keep pilgrims awake in church.
Mrs. Wright tapped a pen nervously against a little paper-clip dish on her desk. “I know you’re wondering why I called you in, and I hope I didn’t embarrass you in front of your friends.”
She paused.
I didn’t say anything. Some remarks are best left unanswered.
“Well,” she sighed, “I just wanted to talk to you. I feel I haven’t been very fair to you. I didn’t give you a chance to defend yourself the other night after the horror-story incident. Also, I feel we haven’t honestly discussed whatever problems you may be having. I know you have not yet been completely honest about why you’re doing the things you’re doing. So now I want your side of all this. We’ve both had time to cool off since Thursday.
“I’m not letting you leave until I hear everything,” she added. “It shouldn’t matter to you much. You’re only missing swimming.” She gave me a sly look.
I ignored the sly look.
“Well?” she said.
“O.K.,” I said.
“Let’s start at the beginning. Why did you skip lunch on Tuesday?”
I took a deep breath. I felt cornered. I was also beginning to feel that Mrs. Wright was a bit dim. Maybe I should clue her in on the fact that she was running her camp all wrong. So I started talking.
And talking. And talking. And talking.
I told her about everything. From her long-distance bathrooms to her lack of privacy to her stupid serving arrangements.
“Well,” said Mrs. Wright when I’d finished.
“Well,” I said. “Do you have to take serious action now?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. The corners of her mouth twitched like she was trying to hide a smile.
“But we have to do something about these…these difficulties. First of all, let me point out that you’ve made all these—”
“Difficulties?” I supplied.
She cleared her throat. “Yes. You’ve made them worse by not telling me the truth before. If you had just told me—”
“But I didn’t want to look like a baby!” I cried. “I’m not a baby.”
“You don’t want to be, but maybe deep down you’re afraid you are.”
I turned that thought over in my head while Mrs. Wright went on. “Anyway, now that it’s all out in the open, we can do something.”
I frowned at her. “Like what?”
“Well, for one thing, you’re absolutely right. Girls your age need their privacy…”
My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t believe it.
Mrs. Wright went on about solutions and things for fifteen more minutes or so. Let me tell you, when that conference was over, camp looked a whole lot brighter.
Mrs. Wright said she’d look into rigging up some kind of dressing room in every cabin. Then she said if serving bugged me so much, Amanda and I could be co-servers, and Amanda could take care of the parts I was worried about. And then, she assured me no one had ever spotted a snake in or near the lake, but since I was already a good swimmer there was no need for me to take lessons and I could spend every other lesson in the arts and crafts cabin, if I spent the in-between ones helping Marcia out (onshore, of course), doing things like keeping track of towels and organizing the Lower Girls for relay races.
I began twitching around in my seat, anxious to leave. Swimming lessons weren’t over yet and I wanted to run right over to Sunny Skies for a while.
“One more thing, Kammy,” Mrs. Wright said, looking stern. “You’ve got a few more nights to go in the kitchen. You’re still on punishment for that incident with Susie. I know the two of you don’t get along very well, but could you please make an effort with her? You don’t really want to spend all your evenings washing dishes, do you?”
“No,” I said hastily. “No. I promise I’ll be nicer. I’m going to try real hard. Honestly.”
“O.K.,” said Mrs. Wright. She smiled warmly.
I dashed out of the office and practically flew to Sunny Skies to work on my quilt.
For the next few days everything went pretty well. Except for working in the kitchen. And Susie, of course.
I tried to ignore her, but she made that very difficult. She would stare at me during every meal and laugh if I did the slightest thing wrong.
She teased me as I headed into the kitchen after supper each night, giggling with Mary and pointing at me and telling anyone who would listen how I had run away from lunch and cried and been in trouble with Mrs. Wright and had to wash dishes.
I thought when you ignored somebody he or she was supposed to lose interest in you. But the more I ignored Susie, the more she followed me around, laughing at me and informing me I was a baby.
I was growing angrier and angrier at her. There were times when I wanted to grab her and throw her across the cabin. But I learned to keep my feelings inside.
In between, I was actually having fun.
With all the extra time I was putting in at Sunny Skies, Baby Boy’s quilt was really coming along. I was making it out of patches of yellow checks, blue checks, yellow flowers, and blue flowers. It took several hours to do each row. I was working slowly and carefully and not making any mistakes.
One day (it was Tuesday, as a matt
er of fact; I remember because for some reason Susie was in the class that day, which spoiled it just a little for me), Janine held up my quilt for all the other girls to see. She explained the pattern I was using and said the stitching was good and wanted to know where I learned it.
I grinned so wide it was hard to talk. As I told everyone about quilting, a bunch of girls (not Susie) crowded around. They asked questions and said the quilt was pretty. I practically burst.
After class, I ran all the way to the mess hall and told Amanda I thought I could handle serving by myself.
Which I did.
That night the Upper Girls had a treasure hunt. The counselors had hidden these funny riddles all over camp. Guess who cracked the final one which led to the treasure? And guess what the treasure was—a gigantic piñata filled with gum drops and jawbreakers, Tootsie Rolls and sour balls, root beer barrels and licorice sticks and barley bears. It was terrific! We spent the evening trading for favorites.
That second week was getting to be one good day after another. I looked forward to arts and crafts and horseback riding and didn’t have to worry about the lake.
A couple of evenings we had meetings to work on the Visiting Day skit. We always started off the meetings by going into the woods and doing our special exercises. I was used to it by now. Also, the scenery was coming along fine and I had memorized my two grandmother lines.
Then came Thursday.
During Siesta I got a letter from Dad.
He started out with the usual news. Simon was going through a pouncing stage. At the university, classes were under way and teaching was a hot profession in the summer, ha ha. And for some reason, Kate didn’t like Hercules or Sherlock as names for Baby Boy. Dad sounded very put out.
Then he got down to what he apparently considered the most important part of the letter, since he spent close to three pages on it. Muffin’s birthday party. It had been held last Saturday. The way Dad went on about it, you’d have thought it was his own party.
I tried to skip over this part of the letter, but it meant skipping from almost the very beginning to the very end. Besides, if you’ve ever tried not to read part of anything anyone has handwritten to you personally, you know it is next to impossible. So I waded through the whole grisly description.